“What did you guys talk about?”

“Rugby.”

“What else?”

I can sense his surprise. “Nothing else, just rugby. You?”

“Lots of stuff. And then movies. Have you ever seen The Last of the Mohicans?”

“I love it.”

“Really?” I’m over the moon. We share a movie. Finally, we’re on the same planet.

“Don’t you love the part where he says, ‘Stay alive. I will find you’?” I ask.

“I love that massacre scene,” he says, like an excited little boy, “where they’re walking down that path in the middle of nowhere and they’re surrounded by the woods and you know the Indians are going to attack and it’s so tense.”

Things that make you go hmmm.

I can sense him looking at me in the dark and I turn to face him, feeling the warmth of his breath on my face.

“What’s going on, Will? Speak to me.”

I don’t know where those words have come from. I’ve heard Mia say them. “What’s going on inside your head, Rob? Tell me.”

Will doesn’t speak, but his hand squeezes mine tighter.

“It’s like you have a plan and someone comes along and makes you want to change it all, but you still like your first plan, no matter how fantastic the second one makes you feel.”

“I’ve never planned anything, so I don’t understand the feeling,” I say.

“Well, I plan everything. I even plan my plans.”

“So tell me about plan number one.”

“First of all, but not in this order, there’s civil engineering. I know I can get between approximately 98.6 and 99.3 in the High School Certificate and that analyzing King Lear’s nervous breakdown on the heath is going to be the deciding factor in those marks.”

I can sense him looking at me in the dark as if I’m supposed to understand this dilemma.

I’m in love with a droid! Any minute now he’s going to start using formulae to work out how he feels about me.

“I know I want to kind of run away next year. Do the whole backpacking thing. Just get lost, you know?”

“You were so confused about the whole overseas thing and now you’re so certain,” I say. “Aren’t you worried about leaving your comfort zones anymore?”

“It’s like what you said at the wedding. About comfort not being everything.”

Great. Now he’s going to start taking my advice, when it’ll mean him leaving.

“I need to sort out the plan priority,” he says decisively.

“Tell me about plan number two.”

“I stay and hang out with this smart-ass who can tell me the difference between Trotsky and Tolstoy.”

I want to beg, “Pick plan two. Pick plan two.”

He kisses me and it’s not like at the party or the wedding. It’s soft and slow and familiar, and this time around I feel as if he’s in control of how he’s feeling and that there’s no regret or guilt on his part. But I taste a bit of sadness in that kiss and I don’t know whether it’s mine or his, but it makes us both tremble and not want to let go.

I sit next to Jimmy on the way home, and he teaches me how to play Nintendo with the precision of a surgeon.

“It’s hard, but you’ll get the hang of it,” he says, handing it over.

I beat him first go and I hand it back. He looks at me darkly.

“You’ve frightened me in the last two days, Francesca. I want you to go back to your pathetic self as soon as possible,” he says.

“Why?” I grin.

“Because you being pathetic makes me feel good about myself,” he jokes.

In front of me, Thomas and Justine are sharing a Discman, one earphone in each of their ears.

I put my face between them.

“Tuba Guy’s not going to be happy,” I say, doing the smooching sounds that Thomas always does when I’m speaking to Will. Behind me, Tara and Siobhan are asleep, heads against each other, mouths hanging open, a bit of saliva on the side.

I feel a wave of sadness come over me. I want the bus driver to turn the bus around and I want to spend the rest of my days in a whirlwind of the last few days. Of flirting. Of laughing. Of ridding the world of evil. Of folk songs. Of piggybacks. Of hip-hop dancing. Of foolishness.

And most of all, of forgetting.

I look past them to where Will and his friends are sitting, and he catches my eye for a moment and smiles. It’s a weird smile, but it reaches his eyes and I bottle it. And I put it in my ammo pack that’s kept right next to my soul. The one that holds Mia’s scent and Justine’s spirit and Siobhan’s hope and Tara’s passions. Because if I’m going to wake up one morning and not be able to get out of bed, I’m going to need everything I’ve got to fight this bastard of a disease that could be sleeping inside of me.

chapter 30

I TURN SEVENTEEN. It’s on a really bad day for Mia. One of those days that make me think she’ll never get better. Some days aren’t just a step back, they are a mile. This morning she’s crying and it’s painful to hear and my ears ache from the sound of her sobbing. I can hear my father’s voice, comforting her, like it always does. But the heart-wrenching sound doesn’t stop. There’s just so much grief there, and I stick my pillow over my head and wish the day away.

No one remembers it’s my birthday, and I’m glad because I just couldn’t bear putting on a smile and pretending to be happy about being a year older. The Stella girls don’t ring. No one rings. Not my grandparents, not anyone, and the worst thing is that it’s Sunday and I’m not at school with my friends, and it’s the loneliest day of my life.

Birthdays in the past were spectacular. If it wasn’t a thousand presents, it was a dinner out, and the birthday person got to choose. Mia let us have wine and we’d make toasts. People would look at us and I could hear them say, “What a great family!” Were we too smug? Does God punish the smug? Does what we had automatically transfer to some other family who didn’t have it but now do, courtesy of our despair?

My father walks into the kitchen. “Go take Luca up to the Abouds.” No “please,” no softness toward me in his voice.

“And then where do you want me to hide?” I ask snidely.

He stares at me, but I don’t care because I don’t know who he is anymore. I used to see him smile every day, but I haven’t seen him smile for months. People used to always say he should grow up, but a grown-up Robert isn’t fun. Bring on the immaturity, I want to say. He’s still staring, and for a moment I don’t recognize the look in his eyes.

“You blame me for this, don’t you?” he says.

“Luca!” I call out, still looking at my father, straight in the eye. “The Abouds want you to come over.”

“Don’t you?” he persists.

“I don’t need to. You’re doing a better job.”

I walk up the road with Luca and Pinocchio.

You blame me for this, don’t you?

I can’t get the words out of my head, both his and mine. Deep down, when I analyze how I feel, I realize that there is resentment and it’s not toward Mia. It’s toward my father. It’s like this bubble that’s inside me that I keep thinking is going to burst on its own because it’s too weak to withstand. But it’s not. It just builds up and builds up, and every word that comes out of his mouth, every feel-good sentiment, every bit of optimism, makes me want to yell hysterically. And in this whole mess, this whole period of everything aching, it’s thinking this way about him that makes me feel as if I’m slowly bleeding inside.

On Monday, the only thing that gets me out of bed is the fact that I hate this house so much that I’d rather die than stay here.

I spend the day on Ms. Quinn’s sofa. Once upon a time she’d work quietly, put off phone calls while I was in there and not allow anyone to disturb us. Now she’s become so used to it that life goes on around me. The normalcy of routine in that office, in itself, is a comfort.

At one stage I have no idea what time it is. I wake up and Will’s sitting on the floor, his back in front of me, leaning against my sofa.